Education
The Bay Area’s first and only all-women construction and solar training program was launched last week in Berkeley. Women Build was launched in response to the low participation of women in the construction trades.
Any deaf visitors will be directed to DeafHope, which focuses specifically on providing services to victims of domestic violence in that community. “We just feel like there really is a need,” says Aracelia Aguilar, an empowerment director with DeafHope, speaking through a relay interpreter via phone. “And we can see how people are trying to survive. There’s such limited communication.”
DeafHope was founded in 2003 by Julie Rems-Smario along with eight other women, who recognized there was a need for specialized services. Previously, says Rems-Smario, also speaking through a relay interpreter, in domestic violence cases, it was often easier for survivors to stay in an abusive home where the abuser knew sign language than to access services available for sexual assault or domestic violence victims, which were designed for the hearing community.
On Wednesday night, community members interested in teaching in Oakland attended a recruiting event hosted by non-profits Educate 78, Education for Change and the Oakland Unified School District.
Wednesday night’s Oakland school board meeting started off sparsely populated; board president James Harris joked that it would be a short meeting. But within two and a half hours, it was standing room only, as parents filed in to attend a special meeting on charter schools’ performance measures and two charter renewals. The meeting began with a joint presentation made by representatives from the groups Latino Men and Boys (LMB) and African-American Female and African-American Male Achievement (AAMA). As part…
Oakland Hacks, or OHacks for short, is the first hackathon run by high school students in Oakland. A hackathon is an event at which people come together to create something through computer programming, from apps to websites. Sometimes they have a theme, a specific topic like music or sports, or participants will create something to be used for their community or to help the environment. OHacks does not have a theme like this, but its workshop format, with many mentors supporting students, focuses on getting beginners interested in computer science. OHacks is scheduled from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m., but other hackathons can last for 24 or 36 hours, or even a whole weekend.
Jay runs a non-profit in Oakland called Hip Hop for Change. His goal is to create a more positive image of hip hop that does not reinforce the stereotypical images perpetuated by the mainstream music industry. “We’re trying to put our real image out there, so people can see our real culture, instead of making stereotypical tropes of our culture to entertain themselves with,” Jay said. “Those tropes that criminalize our black and brown youth.”
Men Creating Peace (MCP) is one of the few domestic violence organizations in Alameda County specifically geared towards men. Founded in 2009, the organization aims to help men who’ve been involved in violent acts adopt coping mechanisms so that they can develop healthier relationships with partners, family and their community.
Wearing a shirt with ruffles running down the front and a bright golden bowtie, children’s author James Kennedy bounced up from a chair and briefly introduced a longtime children’s favorite, My Father’s Dragon, before pressing a key on his computer that started a video on the projector screen. Kennedy was hosting his annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival in Oakland on Saturday, showing short clips filmed by children and teenagers based on Newbery Medal-winning books. Between his wardrobe choices and excited…
Few members of the public attended the beginning of Wednesday night’s meeting for the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) Board of Education. In a relatively empty room, the board heard a presentation from schools police chief Jeff Godown on arrests within OUSD schools and discussed budget priorities for the coming school year.